Author: postMigrator

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” … the highest level of protection humans can
bestow on land: the Wilderness Act.”
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Arizona Republic
Mar. 8, 2008

<http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/0308satlets2-084.html>

Wilderness Act a big boon to nature

Your article on hunting and climate change
touched on some critical dialogue occurring right
now among biologists around the globe (Hunters,
anglers join global-warming outcry, Feb. 21).

Many in my field are wondering how to mitigate
the rapid effects of a warming climate on species
for which there is still time to “help.” Do we
rescue them now with a concept called “assisted
migration,” which allows scientists to move
species to a more amenable climate?

Or do we simply let human-induced changes take their course on Mother Nature?

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” Š although the Bali declarations endorse the
idea of including forest protection in the next
climate agreement, they say nothing about which
avenue to take – an issue that is now being hotly
debated.”

“… it is perfectly legal to ship illegally cut
logs to the United States and Europe (although
efforts are
under way to change that).
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NATURE
Vol 452
6 March 2008
NEWS

Save the trees

Scientists and policy-makers will meet in Bonn
this June to discuss one of the most pressing
concerns to come out of December’s United Nations
climate meeting – how to manage the world’s
tropical forests. Jeff Tollefson examines some of
the proposals.

Rainforest nations walked away from the United
Nations (UN) climate meeting in Indonesia last
December with pretty much all they had hoped for:
a place at the negotiating table and an
acknowledgement that deforestation belongs in a
future global-warming treaty.

The landmark decision in Bali was accompanied by
an outpouring of concern – and in some cases
money – from the international community. Little
more than a month later, however, the European
Commission released a proposal that would ban
forestry credits of any kind from the world’s
largest carbon market until 2020. The document
highlights old divisions over whether to
integrate forestry issues into the cap-and-trade
programme for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions
or to tackle problems such as deforestation
separately through government programmes. Rather
than open up the European market, the commission
proposes funnelling a portion of the proceeds
from the carbon market into deforestation
programmes.

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SCIENCE
VOL 319
7 MARCH 2008

OCEANS

On Phytoplankton Trends

How are phytoplankton at coastal sites around the world
responding to ongoing global change?

Victor Smetacek and James E. Cloern

Phytoplankton-unicellular algae in the
surface layer of lakes and oceans-fuel
the lacustrine and marine food chains
and play a key role in regulating atmospheric
carbon dioxide concentrations. How will ris-
ing carbon dioxide concentrations in the air
and surface ocean in turn affect phytoplank-
ton? Answering this question is crucial for
projecting future climate change. However,
because phytoplankton species populations
appear and disappear within weeks, assessing
change requires high-resolution monitoring
of annual cycles over many years. Such long-
term studies at coastal sites ranging from estu-
aries and harbors to open coastlines and
islands are yielding bewildering variability,
but also fundamental insights on the driving
forces that underlie phytoplankton cycles (1).

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